Pirate Bay co-founders Svartholm, Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom were charged by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and being an accessory.

A number of companies, including SonyBMG, are asking for damages of over $12 million to cover lost revenues.

To quote: A copyright test case involving one of the world's biggest free file-sharing websites that could help music and film companies recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues started on Monday in Stockholm.

Four men linked to The Pirate Bay were charged early last year by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and related offences.

Companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI are also asking for damages of more than 100 million crowns ($12 million) to cover lost revenues.

Sites like The Pirate Bay allow people to download songs, movies and computer games without paying and the trial is being closely watched to see to what extent the entertainment industry can protect copyright against Internet users.

"This is not a political trial, it's not about shutting down a people's library and it's not a trial that wants to prohibit file sharing as a technique," said Monique Wadsted, a lawyer representing Warner Brothers, Columbia, MGM and other major media and computer games companies.

The Pirate Bay have done nothing wrong, US Law does not apply where they are.

The four people behind popular BitTorrent destination the Pirate Bay are now in court charged for copyright-related laws.

Just yesterday, defense for the Pirate Bay said that the website could not be held responsible for the actions of its users. The four leaders of the site, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom, accused of having a hand in both the spread and the resulting pirated material -- causing the motion picture and recording industries to demand $13.5 to make up for lost revenues. If found guilty, the four could also face up to two years’ jail time.

Things took an interesting turn on the second day of the trial, as the prosecution amended its charges against the Pirate Bay, dropping all mention of "complicity in the production of copyrighted material," according to the Local.

The charges will now fall mainly in the production of the torrent files, which aid in the spread of the pirated material but have no involvement in the actual soft or hard copies of the copyrighted works.

"A sensation," quipped Pirate Bay defense lawyer Per Samuelsson. "It is very rare that you win half the case after one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor has been deeply affected by what we said yesterday."

Legal counsel for the music industry side of the prosecution, Peter Danowsky, isn’t seeing it as as loss as much as a strategic move. “It’s a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay. In fact it simplifies the prosecutor’s case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works,” he said in a statement.

"This is not a political trial, it's not about shutting down a people's library and it's not a trial that wants to prohibit file sharing as a technique," said Monique Wadsted, a lawyer representing Warner Brothers, Columbia, MGM and other major media and computer games companies.